[scs]

I'd like to start a fish tank? My friend who got me interested has built his own very large 200g tank out of normal plywood for african cichlids, I've kept africans for a good 5 years so I know what I'm doing per-say with regular fish care. My fishstore graciously got me to buy a few books, which are outdated i think...b/c they don't advicate a deep sand bed, something my store told me about, but I'm still confused what that is, and what it does.

Anyways....way off topic now, but my plan is to build a tank 6 feet long, 2 feet wide and 15 inches high... I think this is about a hundred gallons....and from what I have seen at the fish store I've got the initial plans for the tank

100 lbs of live rock
1 volitan lionfish
1 imperial angel fish
1 yellow tang
1 snowflake eel
1 niger trigger fish

I discussed this with the fish store guy and he helped me out as much as he can(he even admits he's not entirely up to date with marine care) but I think this is a pretty good stocking list


I love the imperial angel and the lionfish....those are the reasons why I'm getting into the hobby


can anyone help me out with some general info, critiques of my set up...

thanks

[scs]

sorry......but I just found a fish called a haliqen tusk fish???


It looks so awesome, does anyone know what I would have to trade from my current fish list to have this fish?

[Reefland]

Hi scs and Welcome to Reefland!

I think your list is a bit aggressive for the size tank you are planning. All of the fish you list can get very large and will require a lot of room.

What are your equipment plans for this tank?

Scott Z.

[Ninong]

Hi scs, welcome to Reefland!

I'm going to move your thread to the Fish-Only marine tank forum. My suggestion would be to consider making your tank taller than 15". That would be acceptable for a coral farming frag tank but it would definitely not be tall enough for a full grown lionfish or one of the large angelfishes. For those fishes, I believe 24" would be better.

The Harlequin Tuskfish will do fine in a 100-gal tank but that size tank is really too small for the large angelfishes. As far as a deep sand bed in a fish-only tank is concerned, there are those who use them and those who don't. One book that you might want to get would be Robert Fenner's The Conscientious Marine Aquarist. It has a lot of good information and is slanted more towards fish-only tanks anyway.

[Ballgame]

Sounds cool. 100lbs of live rock is going to be expensive. I pay $6 a pound. So thats $600 just in rocks for you.

[Leddy]

if you can find a store that sells it, you could get Base Rock. Its pretty much calcium carbonate rock that is harvested. Its not gonna have as many living organisms as say fiji rock would, but its still good to use, especially to build your Live Rock on, and the price is more reasonable (@ $2 per lb). Good for FOWLR tanks. I used 50lbs base rock and 40lbs Fiji LR for my 80 gal. I got my California Calci. Base Rock from a LFS, it came cured with tons of little feather dusters on it. in time it will become covered with coraline algae, but at first its just a whitish/beige color with a bunch of nooks and cranies. If anyone disagrees let me know so i dont give false information. Cool

leddy

[scs]

hey thanks,

after talking to my friend, he has convinced me to make my own rock, cheap, efficient and especially since I'll have the entire tank to cure the rock in, it should work fine.


I'm really excited, now I'll just have to wait a good 6 months for the rock to cure, oh well, it'll look awesome with the shapes I'm going to make